hens lay eggs​

Hi! My name is Stacy McKitrick. I write paranormal romances featuring vampires and ghosts, and I’ll be at the Springfield Book Fair.

Why do I write in that genre? Because I love a little danger (big horror reader here) and I love romance.

I can’t believe it’s been nine years since the bug to write bit me. It certainly wasn’t anything I thought I’d do, either. I loved to read, but write? I wasn’t sure I could do that. But you know the best way to find out if you can? You just do it. (Thanks, Nike). So that’s what I did.

I wrote that first book in about four months. I was so excited! Then I started reading my work. I sucked! What did I do wrong? Well … apparently, a lot.

I bought books on writing. Read blogs on writing. You don’t know how happy I was when I read that first drafts are crappy. Whew! After several revisions I gave the book to someone whose opinion I valued: my daughter. She said I had promise.

Promise!

That’s really all I needed to hear (because the book still needed work). I promptly joined Romance Writers of America and started taking class after class after class. I was having so muchfun! And I finally found my passion in life.

Let me tell you, I was 51. I was sure I wouldneverfind it.

As I learned more about the craft, I tinkered with my writing style. That first book was completely “pantsed”—I didn’t plot a single thing. I tried the plotting thing on the second book ... and failed. Plotting took all the fun out of it. To this day when I start writing a book, I have no idea who my characters are and only a vague idea of what the story is about. That’s what I find fun in writing: learning about them and figuring out how to make them suffer.

I love making them suffer. Hey, they gotta work for that happily ever after!

Writing is different for every writer. Lots of plotters, pantsers, and puzzlers around. Writing is not for everyone. You’ve got to have some thick skin to take the criticism and the rejection. Lots and lots of rejection. Sure, it hurts, but I never let it get me down. Because writing was fun and nothing was going to stop me from having fun.